Untitled

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6131, 18 March 1898, Page 4

In the estimation of Misouth James Bryce, whose book African " Impressions of South Africa " problems, has received favourable notice, the race antagonism which constitutes tne crux of the South African question is not that between Boers and Britons, but the eternal antithesis of the black and white population. This, he considers, is the dominating feature of the situation, which must determine the destinies of the country. The entire European popiilatiou is not much more than 750,000, while the blacks number from six to eight millions, and are increasing more rapidly than the whites. All manual work is done by . the coloured population, with the same result as in the slave States of America, that labour is despised and shunned by the European. " The English carpenter," says Mr Bvyce, '■ hires a native ' boy ' to cany his bag of tools to him ; the English bricklayer has a native hodman to hand the bricks to him, which he proceeds to set ; the Cornishman or Australian miner directs the excavation of the seam, and fixes the fuse which explodes the dynamite, but the work with the pickaxe is done by tho Kafir. The herdsmen who drive the cattle or tend the sheep are Kafirs, acting under the orders of a white." As a conseq\;ence of this sta"te of things Mr Bryce found among the whites an intensity of dislike and contempt for the blacks that fairly astonished him, and a separation of the two populations almost exactly the same as that which prevails in the United States with respect to the negroes. His forecast is, we may hope, a mistaken one, for there are large tracts of South Africa well fitted for European occupation ; and it 1 would be a pity if these should only carry a small community of the " mean white " description, with their moral tone lowered by the presence of an overwhelmingly large blnck population. The Kafir race i 3 improvable, and may be expected iv time to emancipate itself from its position of contempt. The " black-and-white" problem is one for thn future; in the meantime the Boer and the Bntou must ndjust their differences.